It was supposed to be warm and sunny on Friday, so Peter and I originally planned to head to the
beach. It ended up being windy, hot and cloudy (worst combination ever), so we walked across the bridge to the Arbory Bar instead. The bar is attached to Flinders Street Station and was constructed somewhat quietly last year. We saw a bunch of construction going on at the time but just assumed they were updating the station or building another entry point. All of a sudden one day we walked by and a bar had opened seemingly overnight, which was definitely a happy surprise when we were expecting a ticket booth.
This Tuesday is the big Melbourne Cup horse race, which is also a statewide holiday. That's right, everyone gets the day off work for a horse race. Epic. Anyway, the Arbory set up a floating bar on the Yarra called Arbory Afloat for the duration of the racing season. I was under the impression that said bar would actually travel up and down the river, but apparently it's just docked. Peter and I went to check it out on Friday in lieu of the beach and despite its stationary nature, we had a good time!
The sky started to clear and we wandered over to the State Library of Victoria to sit on the lawn and attempt to become less albino. Sadly, mission not accomplished.
We actually sat on a bench because of the pigeons. I have a low-level phobia of pigeons and consider them the most disgusting creature on the planet save perhaps the
huntsman spider.
This is the single most spectated chess game I've ever seen. Actually, it might be the only spectated chess game I've ever seen.
Peter was interested in heading into the library since we had never been, so we looked around for awhile. There were a few art exhibits and this beautiful room.
I mean look at all those students studying on a Friday afternoon! Peter and I decided that we may have spent more Friday afternoons in our college libraries if they looked like this. Then again, unlikely.
After resting up at home for a little bit we headed back out for an early dinner at a Thai restaurant. I chose the Pad Thai because that's pretty much my standard order when it's on the menu. It was a huge portion and I couldn't eat it all but for the first time ever the waitress asked if I wanted a takeaway box! I definitely did.
On our walk home from dinner we played a fun game of what we called "costume or real". Halloween isn't really a thing here for kids but there were some adults who took the opportunity to dress up and head to a party or bar. "Costume or real" consisted of us guessing if the strangely-dressed people we passed were in costume or if that was just their everyday outfit. It was shockingly hard to tell in a surprising number of cases.
And that pretty much sums up our day! We don't have much on the schedule for the next week and are mainly just gearing up for our trip to New Zealand!
Nice library!
ReplyDeleteIt really is!
DeleteI had never been to this library but hope so that with the help of a detailed Australia Road Map I will be able to find this place and enjoy some amazing novels as I m fond of them.
ReplyDelete